On Thursday, the FDA significantly weakened its chemical abortion safety regulations by permanently removing the “in-person dispensing requirement” and allowing distribution of the chemical abortion drugs by mail. However, in Texas, thanks to a timely new law that went into effect this month, mail-order abortion drugs are banned and will not put women at risk.
At the request of pro-life Governor Greg Abbott last summer, the Legislature passed SB 4, the Chemical Abortion Safety Protocols bill, and it went into effect on December 2. The law requires a face-to-face appointment with a doctor to dispense the abortion drugs after determining whether the pregnancy is ectopic, how far along her baby has developed, whether the woman is Rh-negative, and whether the woman is a victim of forced abortion.
SB 4 also creates a felony offense for illegally transporting the abortion-causing drugs by mail or other means so out-of-state offenders can be extradited to Texas and stand trial.
“We applaud the vision of Governor Greg Abbott, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, Speaker Dade Phelan, and the pro-life legislators who made SB 4 a law,” said Texas Alliance for Life’s Executive Director Joe Pojman, Ph.D. “This means the women in our state continue to be protected from the harms of mail-order abortions, despite the foolishness of the Biden/Harris administration in their push to remove protections for women seeking drug-induced abortions in our country.”
The law protects women from the risks of unsupervised use of abortion pills, including:
- Hemorrhage or death from an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy,
- Risk to future pregnancy by undiagnosed Rh factor,
- Hemorrhaging and infection from use of abortion pills later in pregnancy, and
- Use of abortion pills for forced abortions by sex traffickers.
Texas Alliance for Life was an integral part of a coalition of organizations that worked with the authors of SB 4, Sen. Eddie Lucio, Jr. (D-Brownsville) and Rep. Stephanie Klick (R-Fort Worth), to successfully get it passed and to the Governor’s desk.
